Here are the last four national opinion poll findings, broken down by Party:

Conservatives:

35 per cent (YouGov)

33 per cent (ICM)

34 per cent (Ashcroft)

35 per cent (Populus)

Labour:

36 per cent (YouGov)

31 per cent (ICM)

32 per cent (Ashcroft)

36 per cent (Populus)

Liberal Democrats:

9 per cent (YouGov)

13 per cent (ICM)

9 per cent (Ashcroft)

8 per cent (Populus)

UKIP:

14 per cent (You Gov)

15 per cent (ICM)

15 per cent (Ashcroft)

13 per cent (Populus)

My view remains that the polls – being a snapshot of present day opinion, as Lord Ashcroft always reminds us – won’t tell us all that much about the next election until after the Party Conference season, by which time the turbulence caused by the Euro-elections should have calmed. This is why I seldom write about them.

It is also that if at the next election UKIP wins more that the three per cent of the vote they won in 2010, and continues to win more support from former Conservative voters than those from other parties,and Miliband retains a grip on left-wing defectors from the Liberal Democrats, the Tories won’t win a majority. This combination is not unlikely.

Despite my reluctance to be drawn in to covering the polls, four at the same time showing the Conservatives and Labour battling it out for top billing is worth noting – if only because that’s a change from the usual Labour lead. We will see if whether the change is sustained or not. Until or unless that happens, it’s premature to be drawn into speculation about explanations.

What arguably matters most about this polling is the trend and, as Anthony Wells of YouGov said in his round-up of 2013, Labour’s lead narrowed last year. This is a reminder that with Tory poll ratings this low, Labour’s ought to be up in the forties – were the rules of recent history to apply. Four party politics is putting pay to that.